Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “urban mobility science”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records

SMART Mobility. Urban Science Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The Urban Science (US) Pillar focuses on maximum-mobility and minimum-energy opportunities associated with emerging transportation and transportation-related technologies specifically within the urban context. Such technologies, often referred to as automated, connected, efficient (or electrified), and shared (ACES), have the potential to greatly improve mobility and related quality of life in urban areas. Although all the SMART Mobility research pillars share some commonalities, Urban Science strives to model, analyze, and gain insights from the perspective of human settlements (the “city”) as a living organism. This is especially critical as the United States is one of the most urbanized countries, and as more and more of the global population migrates to urban areas.1 The urban mobility system consists of a complex network that reaches well beyond roads and vehicles and includes significant investments in public transit, private mobility services (such as taxis and transportation network companies, or TNCs), significant parking reserves, and curb management practices, not to mention the abundance of emerging on-demand micromobility services for the movement of people and goods such as e-bikes and scooters, which make the urban space a dynamic laboratory for mobility. Urban spaces also concentrate employment, markets, services, and attractions, which are the destinations for most trips. The concentration of human activities and ensuing density also creates the need and emphasis for space efficiency in urban environments, which is often less of a constraint in suburban or rural contexts. This mixture of transportation and mobility infrastructure and practice, combined with global urbanization trends, make urban spaces a critical focus of research for developing energy-efficient mobility systems (EEMS).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Data Science and Urban Air Mobility: Challenges and Opportunities

Aviation is broadly a combination of aircraft, airspace and airports. The data science life cycle comprises of five steps - capture, maintain, process, analyze and communicate. The presentation introduces the legacy of conventional aviation research in the context of the data science life cycle to motivate the challenges with Urban Air Mobility, a field that is quite nascent. A summary of recent research will be presented to highlight the innovative ways to address the challenges. Examples provided will include the generation of synthetic data, encounter models from simulations, and leveraging novel and diverse data sets from traditional transportation and non-aviation sources, to analyze problems of operation in urban airspace. Finally, opportunities will be identified for further exploration, niche development and filling the gaps in the field of data science for UAM.

Urban Air Mobility↗

Data Science and Urban Air Mobility: Challenges and Opportunities

Aviation is broadly a combination of aircraft, airspace and airports. The data science life cycle comprises of five steps - capture, maintain, process, analyze and communicate. The presentation introduces the legacy of conventional aviation research in the context of the data science life cycle to motivate the challenges with Urban Air Mobility, a field that is quite nascent. A summary of recent research will be presented to highlight the innovative ways to address the challenges. Examples provided will include the generation of synthetic data, encounter models from simulations, and leveraging novel and diverse data sets from traditional transportation and non-aviation sources, to analyze problems of operation in urban airspace. Finally, opportunities will be identified for further exploration, niche development and filling the gaps in the field of data science for UAM.

Urban Air Mobility↗

Data Science Challenges for Urban Air Mobility

Aviation is a combination of aircraft, airspace and airports. The data science life cycle comprises of five steps - capture, maintain, process, analyze and communicate. The presentation introduces the legacy of conventional aviation research in the context of the data science life cycle to motivate the challenges with Urban Air Mobility, a field that is quite nascent. A summary of recent research will be presented to highlight the innovative ways to address the challenges. Examples provided will include the generation of synthetic data, encounter models from simulations, and leveraging novel and diverse data sets from traditional transportation and non-aviation sources, to analyze problems of operation in urban airspace. Finally, opportunities will be identified for further exploration, niche development and filling the gaps in the field of data science for UAM.

Data Science↗

Data Science Challenges for Urban Air Mobility

Aviation is a combination of aircraft, airspace and airports. The data science life cycle comprises of five steps - capture, maintain, process, analyze and communicate. The presentation introduces the legacy of conventional aviation research in the context of the data science life cycle to motivate the challenges with Urban Air Mobility, a field that is quite nascent. A summary of recent research will be presented to highlight the innovative ways to address the challenges. Examples provided will include the generation of synthetic data, encounter models from simulations, and leveraging novel and diverse data sets from traditional transportation and non-aviation sources, to analyze problems of operation in urban airspace. Finally, opportunities will be identified for further exploration, niche development and filling the gaps in the field of data science for UAM.

Data Science↗

FY2019 Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Annual Progress Report

EEMS Program activities during FY 2019 focused on analytical research to understand the impacts that new mobility technologies and services will have at the vehicle, traveler, and overall transportation system-level. This research included the development of vehicle and transportation system simulation models and tools to evaluate the complex interactions among the various actors within the mobility landscape, analysis of empirical data to characterize which solutions may provide the largest benefits, and development of new control systems and algorithms that use vehicle connectivity and automation to improve the performance and efficiency of individual vehicles as well as the overall traffic system. This document presents a brief overview of the EEMS Program and documents progress and results for projects within four of the five EEMS activity areas: (1) the SMART (Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation) Mobility Lab Consortium, (2) High Performance Computing and Big Data Solutions for Mobility Data, (3) Advanced R&D Projects conducted by industry and academia, and (4) Core Modeling, Simulation, and Evaluation, Similarly, the remaining EEMS activity area – (5) Living Labs (managed under VTO’s Technology Integration Program). Each of the individual progress reports provide a project overview and highlights of the technical results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

FY2020 Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Annual Progress Report

EEMS Program activities during FY 2020 focused on analytical research and large-scale modeling and simulation to understand the impacts that new mobility technologies and services will have at the vehicle-, traveler-, and overall transportation system-level. This research included the development of a multi-fidelity, end-to-end transportation system models and tools to evaluate the complex interactions among the various actors within the mobility landscape, analysis of empirical data to characterize which solutions may provide the largest benefits, and development of new control systems and algorithms that use vehicle connectivity and automation to improve the performance and efficiency of individual vehicles as well as the overall traffic system. This document presents a brief overview of the EEMS Program and documents progress and results from projects within each of the EEMS activity areas. The Computational Modeling and Simulation key activity area summarizes work within the sub-areas of (1) the SMART (Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation) Mobility Lab Consortium, (2) Artificial Intelligence, High-Performance Computing, and Data Analytics, and (3) Core Simulation and Evaluation Tools. Additionally, the program’s advanced R&D projects are summarized within (4) the Connectivity and Automation Technology key activity area. Each of the individual progress reports provide a project overview and highlights of the technical results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Airspace Research and Development Portfolio Assessment of Urban Air Mobility using Knowledge Graph Data Science

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. The UAM vision is one in which advanced technologies and new operational procedures enable practical and cost-effective air transport as an integrated mode of movement of people and goods throughout metropolitan areas. To safely support UAM operations at scale in the National Airspace System (NAS), NASA’s Air Traffic Management-Exploration (ATM-X) project has been conducting research that evolves the UAM air traffic management system towards a highly automated and operationally flexible system of the future. The complexity of UAM airspace evolution to accommodate the increasing tempo of UAM operations over time is managed through the UAM airspace research roadmap, which is a system engineering approach to the R&D of complex system-of-systems, where system’s interdependencies make it nearly impossible to define requirements for individual elements of the system in isolation. These interdependencies form a knowledge graph (node-link network) with a highly complex structure far beyond the human user’s ability to extract insights for project management’s research portfolio assessment. This study applies advanced data analytics in knowledge graph to the UAM knowledge graph to facilitate the portfolio assessment.

ATM↗

Airspace Research and Development Portfolio Assessment of Urban Air Mobility using Knowledge Graph Data Science

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. The UAM vision is one in which advanced technologies and new operational procedures enable practical and cost-effective air transport as an integrated mode of movement of people and goods throughout metropolitan areas. To safely support UAM operations at scale in the National Airspace System (NAS), NASA’s Air Traffic Management-Exploration (ATM-X) project has been conducting research that evolves the UAM air traffic management system towards a highly automated and operationally flexible system of the future. The complexity of UAM airspace evolution to accommodate the increasing tempo of UAM operations over time is managed through the UAM airspace research roadmap, which is a system engineering approach to the R&D of complex system-of-systems, where system’s interdependencies make it nearly impossible to define requirements for individual elements of the system in isolation. These interdependencies form a knowledge graph (node-link network) with a highly complex structure far beyond the human user’s ability to extract insights for project management’s research portfolio assessment. This study applies advanced data analytics in knowledge graph to the UAM knowledge graph to facilitate the portfolio assessment.

ATM↗

TSDC: Transportation Secure Data Center: Real-World Data for Planning, Modeling, and Analysis

The Transportation Secure Data Center is a centralized repository for high-resolution transportation data from hundreds of travel and transit surveys and studies. It makes vital transportation data broadly available to users while preserving the privacy of survey participants. It houses surveys and studies conducted by state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, transit agencies, cities, and other public agencies. Meanwhile, the Livewire Data Platform empowers research, industry, and academic partners to easily and securely preserve, maintain, share, discover, and gain access to transportation and mobility data. Livewire accommodates a range of datasets, including behavioral, experimental, model, analytical, and raw data at the vehicle, traveler, and system levels. Datasets support mobility research and planning spanning urban science, connected and automated vehicles, fueling and charging infrastructure, mobility decision science, multimodal transportation, vehicle efficiency, and more.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

From the Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) Concept for Advanced Air Mobility Research to a Preliminary Prototype

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses a range of innovative operational and technological changes to aviation (electric aircraft, increasingly automated aircraft, increasingly automated airspace operations, etc.) that are transforming aviation’s role in everyday movement of people and goods. There are multiple associated concepts and use cases for AAM, all interrelated, including small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Upper-Class E Traffic Management (ETM), Extensible Traffic Management (xTM), Regional Air Mobility (RAM), and Urban Air Mobility (UAM). These AAM operations must integrate with traditional Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations, as well as non-aviation modes of transportation and logistics. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of multi-modal transportation systems. The Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) is a concept being developed that ties the workflows of Project Managers (PM), Principal Investigators (PI), and System Engineers together across organizational boundaries. It does so through the management of an information database defined by mathematical, data science, and system engineering principles. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms play a key role in this concept by extracting meaningful knowledge from the information database, which the human user leverages to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their research. Expected benefits of this concept include improved technology transfers from research to production, improved research portfolio investments, and research outcomes that are more integrated with all aspects of the multi-modal transportation problem. The preliminary KbDP prototype has been realized using UAM as a pathfinder use case and developed by a team of system engineer, software developer, data scientist, and interns.

Systems Engineering↗

Street context of various demographic groups in their daily mobility

Abstract We present an urban science framework to characterize phone users’ exposure to different street context types based on network science, geographical information systems (GIS), daily individual trajectories, and street imagery. We consider street context as the inferred usage of the street, based on its buildings and construction, categorized in nine possible labels. The labels define whether the street is residential, commercial or downtown, throughway or not, and other special categories. We apply the analysis to the City of Boston, considering daily trajectories synthetically generated with a model based on call detail records (CDR) and images from Google Street View. Images are categorized both manually and using artificial intelligence (AI). We focus on the city’s four main racial/ethnic demographic groups (White, Black, Hispanic and Asian), aiming to characterize the differences in what these groups of people see during their daily activities. Based on daily trajectories, we reconstruct most common paths over the street network. We use street demand (number of times a street is included in a trajectory) to detect each group’s most relevant streets and regions. Based on their street demand, we measure the street context distribution for each group. The inclusion of images allows us to quantitatively measure the prevalence of each context and points to qualitative differences on where that context takes place. Other AI methodologies can further exploit these differences. This approach presents the building blocks to further studies that relate mobile devices’ dynamic records with the differences in urban exposure by demographic groups. The addition of AI-based image analysis to street demand can power up the capabilities of urban planning methodologies, compare multiple cities under a unified framework, and reduce the crudeness of GIS-only mobility analysis. Shortening the gap between big data-driven analysis and traditional human classification analysis can help build smarter and more equal cities while reducing the efforts necessary to study a city’s characteristics.

Salgado, Ariel (ORCID:0000000177015372)↗

SMART Mobility. Advanced Fueling Infrastructure Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The first three-year research phase of SMART Mobility occurred from 2017 through 2019 and included five research pillars: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Mobility Decision Science, Multi-Modal Freight, Urban Science, and Advanced Fueling Infrastructure. A sixth research thrust integrated aspects of all five pillars to develop a SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow to evaluate new transportation technologies and services at scale. This report summarizes the work of the Advanced Fueling Infrastructure Pillar. This Pillar investigated the charging infrastructure needs of electric ride-hailing and car-sharing vehicles, automated shuttle buses, and freight-delivery truck fleets. For information about the other Pillars and about the SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow, please refer to the relevant Pillar’s Capstone Report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

SMART Mobility. Mobility Decision Science Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The first three-year research phase of SMART Mobility occurred from 2017 through 2019, and included five research pillars: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Mobility Decision Science, Multi-Modal Freight, Urban Science, and Advanced Fueling Infrastructure. A sixth research thrust integrated aspects of all five pillars to develop a SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow to evaluate new transportation technologies and services at scale. This report summarizes the work of the Mobility Decision Science Pillar. The Mobility Decision Science Pillar sought to fill gaps in existing knowledge about the human role in the mobility system including travel decision-making and technology adoption in the context of future mobility. The objective was to study how underlying preferences, needs, and contextual factors might constrain or hasten future transportation system scenarios. For information about the other Pillars and about the SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow, please refer to the relevant pillar’s Capstone Report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

SMART Mobility. Modeling Workflow Development, Implementation, and Results Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The first three-year research phase of SMART Mobility occurred from 2017 through 2019, and included five research pillars: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Mobility Decision Science, Multi-Modal Freight, Urban Science, and Advanced Fueling Infrastructure. A sixth research thrust integrated aspects of all five pillars to develop a SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow to evaluate new transportation technologies and services at scale. This report summarizes the work of the SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow effort. The SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow was developed to evaluate new transportation technologies such as connectivity, automation, sharing, and electrification through multi-level systems analysis that captures the dynamic interactions between technologies. By integrating multiple models across different levels of fidelity and scale, the Workflow yields insights about the influence of new mobility and vehicle technologies at the system level. For information about the other Pillars, please refer to the relevant pillar’s Capstone Report.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

SMART Mobility. Connected and Automated Vehicles Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The first three-year research phase of SMART Mobility occurred from 2017 through 2019 and included five research pillars: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Mobility Decision Science, Multi-Modal Freight, Urban Science, and Advanced Fueling Infrastructure. A sixth research thrust integrated aspects of all five pillars to develop a SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow to evaluate new transportation technologies and services at scale. This report summarizes the work of the Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) Pillar. This Pillar investigated the energy, technology, and usage implications of vehicle connectivity and automation and identified efficient CAV solutions. For information about the other Pillars and about the SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow, please refer to the relevant Pillar’s Capstone Report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

SMART Mobility. Multi-Modal Freight Capstone Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is a multiyear, multi-laboratory collaborative, managed by the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Program of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, dedicated to further understanding the energy implications and opportunities of advanced mobility technologies and services. The first three-year research phase of SMART Mobility occurred from 2017 through 2019, and included five research pillars: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Mobility Decision Science, Multi-Modal Freight, Urban Science, and Advanced Fueling Infrastructure. A sixth research thrust integrated aspects of all five pillars to develop a SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow to evaluate new transportation technologies and services at scale. This report summarizes the work of the Multi-Modal Freight Pillar. The Multi Modal Freight Pillar’s objective is to assess the effectiveness of emerging freight movement technologies and understand the impacts of the growing trends in consumer spending and e-commerce on parcel movement considering mobility, energy, and productivity. For information about the other Pillars and about the SMART Mobility Modeling Workflow, please refer to the relevant pillar’s Capstone Report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗